Watch The Moon Fall In The First Five Minutes Of Moonfall
After blowing up the White House in "Independence Day," flooding New York City in "The Day After Tomorrow," and unleashing all sorts of natural disasters in "2012," how else can director Roland Emmerich wreak havoc on our poor little planet? Why, having the moon attack Earth, of course! That's the setup for the filmmaker's next project, "Moonfall," and you can now watch the first five minutes now.
"Moonfall" begins with a spaceship orbiting our home world, and astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson at his most adorkable) discussing the lyrics to Toto's rock classic "Africa" with his co-worker Alan Marcus (Frank Fiola) and "work wife" Jo Fowler (Halle Berry). If you've ever seen "Gravity" (Emmerich clearly has) or any other sci-fi thriller that opens in outer space, you know things are about to go very wrong, and they do. Before they know it, a mysterious, giant black space cloud attacks the trio's ship and nearly kills them all in one fell swoop. And it that wasn't enough, it seems to have come from ... inside the moon? Cue the title card and Thomas Wander's operatically foreboding score.
Moonfall's Opening
In addition to directing, Emmerich penned "Moonfall" with his frequent composer and co-writer Harald Kloser ("10,000 BC," "2012"), as well as "Extinction" scribe and "Ballistic" co-creator Spenser Cohen. Joining Berry and Wilson in the film's cast is "Game of Thrones" alum John Bradley as K.C. Houserman, a conspiracy theorist who teams up with Brian and Jo to save the day when the same force that went after them in the movie's opening sends the moon off its orbit and on a collision course with Earth.
It seems Bradley's character is filling the role of the eccentric outsider whose scientific know-how holds the key to protecting the planet, which is a trope that's often reared its head in Emmerich's past disaster movies. The decision to not just make a conspiracy theorist one of the film's heroes but also base its concept on the "Hollow Moon" theory is certainly a questionable one, given that "Moonfall" is debuting at a time when dangerous conspiracy theories keep gaining traction thanks to false information spreading online. To his credit, though, Emmerich did consider this but feels that making a tentpole about the Moon going to war with the Earth isn't going to "hurt anybody" or cause harm the way a movie based on QAnon or anti-vaxxer conspiracies would.
"Moonfall" opens in theaters on February 4, 2022.